9.5. Word Count

There are different word counts expected for the two projects.

  • For the 40-credit projects, the word count for the body of the report is expected to be up to 12,000 words.

  • For the 20-credit projects, the word count for the body of the report is expected to be up to 6,000 words.

Some students ask if there is a minimum word count. There is no minimum word count, but shorter reports that are not close to the numbers above are likely to be lacking in relevant detail. Lacking detail will have an impact on the mark. In some situations, the lack of details means that the work will be failed by the markers.

Excluded content

The above word counts cover the body of the Project Report. This includes everything in the Project Report, except for:

  • Title Page

  • Table of Contents (and lists of figures and tables, if used)

  • Dedication

  • Declarations

  • Abstract

  • Page Headers and Page Footers (e.g. page numbers)

  • Footnotes (if used - we typically don’t expect these)

  • Code extracts in the body of the report (but please see guidance on Code Extracts later on this page)

  • Captions for Figures and diagrams

  • Annotated Bibliography

  • Appendices

For the avoidance of doubt, this includes everything else such as body text, section titles and tables.

Section word count

There isn’t a breakdown of the word count for the different sections. That is a judgement by you for the project.

There are three general areas for the content, which are (i) the background and objectives, (ii) the technical work described in the design, implementation and testing, and (iii) the evaluation. The technical work discussion is likely to be the larger part of the report, but do include appropriate discussion for the other sections.

TurnItIn word count

In terms of checking the word count for the Project Report, we will start by checking the TurnItIn value for word count. We know that the TurnItIn word count is often higher than you might get from Word or Open Office or TeXcount (for LaTeX documents). We will be reasonable about our interpretation of the TurnItIn word count.

The TurnItIn word count will include all parts of your report, including the parts that we say are not covered as part of the body of the report. Therefore, it is only the starting point for us understanding how much you have written. Realistically, we will only investigate further if it looks like the body report length is in excess of the overall limit that we have stated on this page.